Solid State Relays and EMI

[Antti Lukats]

"Tim Shoppa" <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote in message
news:bec993c8.0408290629.44b0f5fd@posting.google.com...

In the perfect world there would be a flash-based microcontroller,
serially programmable, that could run off a single cell (meaning 0.9V -
1.8V or so).

PIC16LF62x's go down to 2.0V (with some reasonable temperature
limitations)
and are very hobbyist-accessible. (OK, there are some minor points
about verifying the flash at low voltage but those aren't biggies).
2.0V is OK for two-cell operation, but I want better.

www.cypressmicro.com
runs from single cell, but has step up built in the micro !

antti

 

[Rich Webb]

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:19:29 GMT, maxfoo <maxfoo@punkassSPAM.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:37:35 +0100, "Dave Garnett"
dave.garnett@metapurple.co.uk> wrote:

Some of the newer Atmel AVR's go down to 1.8v. They are much nicer than PICs
to use, as well ...

Dave

Not really, AVR assembler is harder than Pic assembler for a newbie to learn.

IMHO, this is incorrect. I've developed several products using only
assembler on both architectures and my opinion is that the AVR layout is
MUCH more developer-friendly (even for a "newbie"). PICs certainly have
their place and I use whichever makes sense for a given project, but
trying to squeeze everything through that single W-register is a pain in
the arse.

Most people use a c compiler with the AVR

Well, don't "most people" also use a C compiler with PICs, at least for
projects where a higher-level language is indicated?

and unless you use linux those c
compilers are expensive. The few free ones are buggy as hell too...

Incorrect. There is a well supported MS Windows port of gcc for the AVRs
which is hardly "buggy as hell". The project is up on SourceForge so
anyone who is interested can access the bug tracker.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr

The commercial C compilers are not all "expensive", either. I've been
using Imagecraft's ICC-AVR for a few years. Good product, NOT expensive.

BTW, to the best of my knowledge, a gcc cross-compiler for PICs has been
started a few times but none are released.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

 

[Chaos Master]

Mark (UK) puts out:

Hi!

Id' be weary, as it tried to install something on my machine when I go
to a datasheet page - this was in the page code:

Doesn't seem to try to install anything here.
Internet Explorer 6.0 with latest security updates, Windows 98 SE.

[]s
--
Chaos MasterŽ, posting from Brazil. REPLY TO GROUP!
MSN: wizard_of_yendor[@]hotmail[.]com http://marreka.no-ip.com
"People told me I can't dress like a fairy. I say,
I'm in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!" -- Amy Lee

 

[Dave VanHorn]

When I attended an Atmel seminar back in june, the atmel reps said that
the avr
arch is optimized for C and they do not recommend using an assembler.

It is optimized for C, but that has no bearing on using it with assembler.
That's what I do for a living.

--
KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org
Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR

 

[Dave VanHorn]

"Roy Smith" <roy@panix.com> wrote in message
news:roy-1C4475.15480029082004@reader1.panix.com...

maxfoo <maxfoo@punkassSPAM.com> wrote:
the atmel reps said that the avr arch is optimized for C a

Ah, so it's a pdp-11 clone?

So I could get RSTS-E?

--
KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org
Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR

 

[John S. Dyson]

In article <h_-dnToqWKcaD6_cRVn-ow@comcast.com>,
"Dave VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net> writes:

"Roy Smith" <roy@panix.com> wrote in message
news:roy-1C4475.15480029082004@reader1.panix.com...
maxfoo <maxfoo@punkassSPAM.com> wrote:
the atmel reps said that the avr arch is optimized for C a

Ah, so it's a pdp-11 clone?

So I could get RSTS-E?

Instead, you could run a PDP11 emulator on your PC, and it would

probably be 10X faster than the fastest real PDP11 ever made.

John

 

[Stefan Heinzmann]

Tim Shoppa wrote:

In the perfect world there would be a flash-based microcontroller,
serially programmable, that could run off a single cell (meaning 0.9V -
1.8V or so).

There are 0.9V microcontrollers, for example from Seiko/Epson, but
they're ROM based. I'm not aware of any Flash (whether on chip with a
microcontroller or separate) that goes down in Voltage that far. Your
best bet will be to use a DC/DC converter to step up the voltage.

--
Cheers
Stefan

 

[Stefan Heinzmann]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:45:15 +0200, the renowned Stefan Heinzmann
stefan_heinzmann@yahoo.com> wrote:


Tim Shoppa wrote:

In the perfect world there would be a flash-based microcontroller,
serially programmable, that could run off a single cell (meaning 0.9V -
1.8V or so).

There are 0.9V microcontrollers, for example from Seiko/Epson, but
they're ROM based. I'm not aware of any Flash (whether on chip with a
microcontroller or separate) that goes down in Voltage that far. Your
best bet will be to use a DC/DC converter to step up the voltage.


I think the former actually incorporate an on-chip charge pump to
double the cell voltage with the help of a couple of external caps.
Some Japanese mask micros have a mask option to select straight
through or boosted input PS voltage.

For smaller quantity or more demanding applications, an external
doubler, an extra cell, or a higher voltage cell may be the best
solution.

You're right, I checked the Epson data sheets. Whichever, the OP will
not have much fun with them, as they're ROM based. I second your advice.

--
Cheers
Stefan

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On 30 Aug 2004 06:41:06 -0700, shoppa@trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote:

The TI MSP430 seems to be much closer to me in terms of PDP-11
architecture. That said, the MSP430 is missing most of the
wonderful orthogonal address modes that makes an -11 an -11.

Yup, that's it in a nutshell, I think. The price they paid for more than 8
registers was too dear, in my opinion, and very much ill-advised. However, the
hardware on the MSP-430 continues to impress me.

Jon

 

[Ian Stirling]

In sci.electronics.design Josue Hernandez <josue.hernandez@sanfrancisco.heald.edu> wrote:

Help?
I was wondering if anybody out there can help me by finding a
schematic of an electronic banner? I am traying to build it from
scratch?

Thank you in advance for your help.

It's not going to be much cheaper than you can buy it.
The basic idea is simple, a few thousand LEDs, and a matrix driver.

 

[John Miller]

Josue Hernandez wrote:

I was wondering if anybody out there can help me by finding a
schematic of an electronic banner? I am traying to build it from
scratch?

The hard part (in doing it right) is getting ten times the LEDs you need,
then lighting them all up and sorting them into 10 matching sets.

As part of a a scrolling sign project, my work group once got a tour of the
factory of an OEM we were considering, and got to see the brightness/color
matching room. Instead of the robots you might expect, they employed women
with particularly good visual discrimination, gazing at LED-covered panels
on the wall. Mind-boggling.

--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

Whistler's mother is off her rocker.

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:30:02 GMT, John Miller <me@privacy.net> wrote:

Josue Hernandez wrote:
I was wondering if anybody out there can help me by finding a
schematic of an electronic banner? I am traying to build it from
scratch?

The hard part (in doing it right) is getting ten times the LEDs you need,
then lighting them all up and sorting them into 10 matching sets.

As part of a a scrolling sign project, my work group once got a tour of the
factory of an OEM we were considering, and got to see the brightness/color
matching room. Instead of the robots you might expect, they employed women
with particularly good visual discrimination, gazing at LED-covered panels
on the wall. Mind-boggling.

I developed systems for Infineon (when they still owned their optoelectronics
division) to automatically sort and bin on both hue and intensity, in accordance
with how humans would usually observe them. (Both for single LED dice and for
tri-color assemblies.) The resulting systems were more repeatable than the
original standards equipment they'd used to judge these machines, originally,
and they made their measurements in a 1/100th the time, as well. I'm a little
bit proud of the quality of the resulting instruments.

I'd imagined before this project that LED fabrication was precise enough that at
least where they are all cut from a single wafer one could expect them all to
perform similarly. At least from the point of view of a human viewer -- but no,
apparently not so. Processes just aren't that good and they *do* need to be
tested and graded, if you don't want hokey-looking displays as a result. It's
not so important to use the same hue and intensity LEDs on all production
displays, but it is often important to use all with the same hue and intensity
for LEDs that are part of an integrated display on a given unit.

Women do have a demonstrated better capability at color gradation -- a finer
sense. There's a large testing kit that used to be used to qualify "color
checkers" (and may still be used, at places where humans are still used in that
function) who analyze color prints as they roll off the printer. (My wife used
to do this and could color check three rolls simultaneously, as they came off
the printer without making mistakes [periodically, they'd verify her work by
doing a post-mortem on a roll, at random.]) I've never heard of a case where a
man passed the test satisfactorily.

(Today, my wife can still spot almost anything that is out of place in a scene.
When we are driving down a road, she'll notice some odd, tiny bird in the woods
we are passing -- something that I couldn't easily notice if we were dead
stopped and I spent some time trying hard. It's a refined skill, I guess.)

I don't know whether this is genetic (I'd always assumed it was) or a matter of
very early training due to differences in activities thrust upon infants (just
saw the results of a new science report appearing to demonstrate that color
discrimination can be severely impaired by raising young in environments that
are drab and that this acquired learning difficulty cannot be easily remedied by
years of additional training afterwards.)

Your comment reminded me of the time that Feynman talked about, when he managed
a room full of women 'calculators' for the WW II bomb project in the US. But
like the fact that modern computers do that work both faster and more precisely,
so can color and intensity binning equipment do the job of rooms full of women
and do it as well and certainly faster, too.

Jon

 

[Christian Rausch]

There was an interesting article on spice quartz models some years ago in
electronic design:
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/6248/6248.html

I hope this helps.

Unfortunately, Telequarz, was taken over by Corning and I could not find the
QSLIB software on their web site any more, which put out the capacitances
and inductances and other model parameters of the Telequarz products.
Maybe they send you QSLIB if you ask them kindly...

Christian

 

[Don Pearce]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:58:25 +0000 (UTC), terran@mit.edu (Terran
Melconian) wrote:

In article <kf87j0lvbjo5g2earuvgoa7ckme0l4gt09@4ax.com>,
Jonathan Kirwan <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:
I don't know whether this is genetic (I'd always assumed it was) or a matter of
very early training due to differences in activities thrust upon infants (just

There's reason to think that it's at least partially genetic. Just as
men are more likely to be color-blind than women, women are more likely
to have a mutation in the other direction, allowing them to perceive
FOUR distinct colors instead of the three the rest of us are stuck with.
They get an extra one somewhere in between red and green. Apparently
this mutation either cannot occur at all or is vastly less likely in men
(I don't remember which, but I bet it's in the article) because the
relevant genes are on the X chromosome.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010124055900/http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue86/mag-mutant-86.html

There are quite a few gender-specific anomalies in vision. For
example, in this picture apparently women can see a waterfall:

http://www.donepearce.plus.com/odds/waterfall.jpg

I've stared for ages, and it simply isn't there.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

 

[Terran Melconian]

In article <kf87j0lvbjo5g2earuvgoa7ckme0l4gt09@4ax.com>,
Jonathan Kirwan <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

I don't know whether this is genetic (I'd always assumed it was) or a matter of
very early training due to differences in activities thrust upon infants (just

There's reason to think that it's at least partially genetic. Just as
men are more likely to be color-blind than women, women are more likely
to have a mutation in the other direction, allowing them to perceive
FOUR distinct colors instead of the three the rest of us are stuck with.
They get an extra one somewhere in between red and green. Apparently
this mutation either cannot occur at all or is vastly less likely in men
(I don't remember which, but I bet it's in the article) because the
relevant genes are on the X chromosome.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010124055900/http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue86/mag-mutant-86.html

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:58:25 +0000 (UTC), terran@mit.edu (Terran Melconian)
wrote:

There's reason to think that it's at least partially genetic. Just as
men are more likely to be color-blind than women,

Yes, that's true. It's X-linked and women have two so their rate of getting it
on both and having it exhibit itself is the squared rate of men who can only
depend on the one.

women are more likely
to have a mutation in the other direction, allowing them to perceive
FOUR distinct colors instead of the three the rest of us are stuck with.
They get an extra one somewhere in between red and green. Apparently
this mutation either cannot occur at all or is vastly less likely in men
(I don't remember which, but I bet it's in the article) because the
relevant genes are on the X chromosome.

I hadn't heard of this, at all. I'll have to read and consider the idea.

Of course, I'm still curious about the idea of just how much of the differences
we observe are accounted for through nurture (or, perhaps, would be widened even
more if nurture were removed from the equation.) There seems reason to suspect
some impact, though it may be nil by comparison with other effects.

Jon

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:12:06 +0100, Don Pearce <donald@pearce.uk.com> wrote:

There are quite a few gender-specific anomalies in vision. For
example, in this picture apparently women can see a waterfall:

http://www.donepearce.plus.com/odds/waterfall.jpg

I've stared for ages, and it simply isn't there.

Egads and holy moly! I know that place! It's Punchbowl Falls on the Eagle
Creek Trail, here in Oregon. I'm going to have to spend more time there!
Obviously, I've been dropping by at the wrong times.

Here's a picture of it at my web site:
http://users.easystreet.com/jkirwan/Punchbowl%20Falls.jpg

My wife's been telling me we could use another wife, anyway!

Jon

 

[Don Pearce]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 20:57:29 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:12:06 +0100, Don Pearce <donald@pearce.uk.com> wrote:

There are quite a few gender-specific anomalies in vision. For
example, in this picture apparently women can see a waterfall:

http://www.donepearce.plus.com/odds/waterfall.jpg

I've stared for ages, and it simply isn't there.

Egads and holy moly! I know that place! It's Punchbowl Falls on the Eagle
Creek Trail, here in Oregon. I'm going to have to spend more time there!
Obviously, I've been dropping by at the wrong times.

Here's a picture of it at my web site:
http://users.easystreet.com/jkirwan/Punchbowl%20Falls.jpg

My wife's been telling me we could use another wife, anyway!

Jon

They were right - there IS a waterfall!

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

 

[-=Punkrat=-]

On 29 Aug 2004 12:54:04 -0700, chrisjaywray@hotmail.com (Jay) wrote:

Has anyone noticed that all of the component datasheets that are at
chipdocs.com ($100 per year subscription) are available from
alldatasheet.com for free. The databases seem to be exactly the same
and the datasheets even have the same directoy structure.

I'll be asking for my money back.....what a rippoff! Would suggest
using alldatasheet.com from now on.

Thanks for a great tip!

Looks like they have a pretty broad selection of specs.

Running XP Service Pack 2 w/ popup block enabled it goes right to spec
sheet in .pdf for me.

Thanks again!

PR

 

[Stef Mientki]

Jay wrote:

Has anyone noticed that all of the component datasheets that are at
chipdocs.com ($100 per year subscription) are available from
alldatasheet.com for free. The databases seem to be exactly the same
and the datasheets even have the same directoy structure.

I'll be asking for my money back.....what a rippoff! Would suggest
using alldatasheet.com from now on.

It's cheap,
but it's certainly is another database with less components.
Try for instance HA13440 (a very common floppy drive motor controler).

Stef Mientki